the craft. who are you writing for?
I’ve been reading through 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg and boy is it the long hug you need as a writer. Especially when you’ve been doling out a lot of the encouragement, you don’t realize how important it is to fill yourself back up. But I was struck by these two questions on P. 189.
Who are you writing this for?
What do you hope to accomplish with this work?
At onset I felt offended thinking about my current work in progress because in many ways it just feels extremely superficial on the surface. It’s a twisted, complex romance story that stemmed from my travels and now I’m seeing where it goes. But it’s never that simple, right? Even when we think we only want to talk about two attractive people falling in love and all that comes with it, we’re always exploring much deeper themes. “You gotta be thinking big, bish!” At least that’s what I tell myself, or maybe I’ve been listening to too much Lucky Daye, but I digress.
When I peel back the layers of what’s between all the lines of romance and desire and the mystique of men from the Caribbean, extremely big themes are there.
The collision of culture in the Black diaspora. There is something I enjoy about exploring the fullness of the Black experience in America and beyond and that intersection.
Feeling trapped by beliefs that were long held before you could even make up your mind for yourself.
Women defining their own path without the desire for the nuclear family, husband and kids, and how they navigate the world.
Being in love and loving someone, the decisions we make in what that means.
I could keep going. The reality is, it’s rich. Even when you think you’re just kind of exploring in your head. There’s always a question that you’re trying to answer if you think hard enough about it. Those are the things that I’m trying to accomplish with my work. I want readers to think about these things and what it means to them in their own worlds. I want to piss readers off. I want to write about difficult women. I want to make them consider things they never have.
Now, who am I writing for? Well, I love that in the excerpt from the book, Jami Attenberg totally identifies that at times the answer can be “For me.” It’s fine to write something that is for you. To get it out. To explore. To live out a fantasy. Whatever it is. Sometimes that’s completely my answer. But when I sat with it for a moment, I realized it’s so clear who I write for most often. I write for the Black girls who read adult books when they were children because there wasn’t enough representation. It’s some mix of literary and urban. There will always be love, music, or family at the center and probably a combination of all three. I write for ambitious women who hope there is love out there for them too. I write for Black men to be portrayed as tender, worthy of our love and our grace. I write for the people who believe that the chasm between Black men and women is only one that we can repair together.
While at first I clutched my pearls from feeling like Ms. Attenberg was reading me with those questions about what felt like a frivolous new project that was just fun for me, I enjoyed thinking about this. I respect how we start down these paths innocently when all this stuff is showing up on the page through our subconscious. Even when it all feels like a jumble of words, we are writing because we have something to say. It’s innate for us as writers. As people who observe the world and take notes. People who live in our heads and the what if this, then that.
So, I pose those same questions to you, who are you writing for and what do you hope to accomplish with this work? That may be something for you to think about this week!
PEN/Jean Stein Grants for Literary Oral History accepting submissions until August 1st.
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